Reed Benson June 9th 2017, 2:14 am
This is always a hard question for me because a lot of the time, I feel like I still don't truly trust in Him. If I did, I wouldn't spend so many of my days just going through the motions (or lack of motions) that I've become accustomed to.
Short answer:
Probably sometime in junior high or just before.
Long answer:
I grew up going to a Methodist church. When I was young - probably of elementary school age - I recall praying that God would let me go to heaven even though I hadn't done anything to deserve it. I had a subconscious rationale that God worked through reverse psychology, so if I thought I deserved something, He'd take it away, but if I presented myself as pitiable, He'd bless me. That feeling still lingers, actually, no matter how much I try to expunge it; only now I know God can see through my fronting.
I also remember imagining a scene of clouds (representing heaven) positioned in levels. God (a bright light) was on the top level. Jesus was under him, and Santa Claus was just below him. They would converse about how I was doing.
I really started taking it all seriously in junior high, I think. That's around when I started going to youth group. In high school, I became interested in apologetics, Christian music, and Bible thumping (I was rarely, if ever, brave enough to actually argue about religion unless I had someone more confident than me on my side, but I would often make the arguments in my head to affirm myself).
Youth group was encouraging a lot of the time, but I ended up leaving it later in my high school years because I never got the feelings that everyone else seemed to get. The others would be raising their hands and crying during worship songs, and I'd always be sitting or standing there, waiting for some sort of spiritual movement to push me to do the same, but it never came, and I didn't want to fake it. So I claimed that I wasn't getting anything out of it, but really, the spiritual fervor of everyone else was just making me feel super inadequate. Of course, I never told anyone about it.
The one instance in my life that I can look back at and feel somewhat safe in saying, "That was God," happened while I was in a particularly depressed state. I was in the family computer room alone, updating my Xanga page. I forget the exact sentiment, but I was typing something about feeling separated from God. The TV was on in the room, airing an episode of All in the Family on TV Land, but I wasn't paying any attention to it until Archie Bunker suddenly said, "God don't make mistakes, that's how he got to be God!" Those words broke through my haze like high beams at night - I wasn't a mistake! I didn't publish my post that night. If I see God on the other side and He says that He wasn't talking to me in that instance, I'll be shocked.
I've had ups and downs in faith since then. I still don't have strong emotional connections to God (or much of anything, really). I'm kind of a robot, and I don't know what to do about it. But I know that if Jesus isn't the truth, nothing matters. I just need to get the knowledge of what He's truly done for me deep down into my soul and/or spirit so that it influences everything else about me.
Sorry for the length. I guess I had a lot I needed to get out.